Sarkin Gobir, bandit lords and the rest of us

Among the many things that would cause us to reflect, if we were a reflecting country, one of them would be death. And God knows this country has had a bunch of those, most of them totally avoidable, others shoved aside as normal, not dramatic enough, not tragic enough to be talked about. But in […]

Among the many things that would cause us to reflect, if we were a reflecting country, one of them would be death. And God knows this country has had a bunch of those, most of them totally avoidable, others shoved aside as normal, not dramatic enough, not tragic enough to be talked about. But in any country, the death of a prominent person, such as the late Sarkin Gobir, Alhaji Isa Muhammad Bawa, 74, murdered in cold blood by bandits, is one that should have caused a tremor.

It should have caused frantic and calculated moves within the government to say, “Well, it is high time definitive measures are taken to end this banditry and secure the country and its people.” If the habitual murder of average Nigerians has failed to strike a chord, then you would think the kidnap and murder of a royal as highly revered as the Sarkin Gobir should.

The last time the ruler of Gobir met a violent death, to the best of my knowledge, was way back in 1808. Gobir is one of the original seven Hausa city states, and records of its existence date back to the 11th century. Gobir holds a significant place in Nigeria’s history because it is from here that the Dan Fodiyo Jihad started and the Sokoto Caliphate was born. The dispute starting in 1804 between Sarkin Gobir, Muhammadu Yunfa dan Nafata, and his former teacher and prominent scholar, Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, climaxed in 1808 when Dan Fodio’s forces conquered Gobir and slayed the king.

Two hundred years later, another ruler of Gobir met his death in a violent manner. Except this was no battle but a cold-blooded murder by criminals.

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Alhaji Bawa was abducted, alongside his son, Kabiru Bawa, on his way back from Sokoto after a meeting at the Sultanate Palace in Sokoto on July 27. For 45 days he was held captive in the forest and made to beg for his life in a recorded video.

In those 45 days, his family ran from pillar to post to plead for his ransom. At first, his abductors demanded N500 million, then a N100 million, and then finally N60 million with five motorcycles of a specific brand. It is a lot of money, even in this time when our currency has lost its value, and naturally, it took time for the money to come through.

Surajo Bawa, a son of the deceased, said the Sokoto State government did not seem altogether enthused to help pay the ransom, and the impression he got was that his father’s politics, his affinity for one political party over the other, might have been the cause of this reticence. By the time the money was approved, the clock had ticked down for the monarch. In the dust raised by this tragic killing, we see that by holding the monarch for ransom, an entire kingdom and the state are held by the reins. But the most glaring thing, if Suraj Bawa’s deductions are to be believed, is the tinko-tinko politics that has enabled the rise of this banditry and the massive cost it is exerting on Nigerians. In this case, the life of a prominent person and the N60 million in ransom.

What is even more glaring, if it hasn’t been already, is that absolutely no one is beyond being taken, beyond being tortured, and beyond being killed like vermin in the wild by these bandits.

We have always known that, haven’t we? The Sarkin Gobir is neither the first nor the most prominent victim of banditry and the plague of criminality we are facing in this country. Wasn’t a prominent traditional title holder and relative of a sitting president abducted in Daura some years ago? Haven’t traditional rulers been taken from their palaces or homes? Some killed, some fortunately returned.

People who have served this nation in the highest capacity and should enjoy their retirements have long suffered humiliating deaths at the hands of criminals, like the Civil War hero General Muhammadu Shuwa, who was gunned down at his home by Boko Haram, or former Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, who was shot dead by highway criminals.

That we speak of these names, amongst many others, because of their prominence does not overshadow the fact that dozens of Nigerians are abducted every day and dozens are killed every day, and they don’t make the news or cause national outrage or shock.

For example, the fact that after the murder of the Sarkin Gobir, 150 of his former subjects have been abducted in a raid on the ancient town by the bandits has not moved the needle on our outrage meter by much. The development hasn’t enjoyed as much news coverage because we are now falling into the danger of accepting such incidents as normal.

We are even accepting bandits as a fact of life. I even saw a clip of one dumb Islamic cleric, whose name I shall not bother to mention, preaching almost with glee over the murder of the monarch and insinuating it is a punishment from Allah because, according to him, the monarch and others identify as “traditional rulers,” not “Islamic rulers”. How he would rationalise the cold-blooded murder of Islamic clerics like Sheikh Jafar Adam and Albanin Zaria by terrorists is something I can’t even begin to fathom.

That imprudence aside, there is a bothersome audacity to the criminality being committed in this country. That bandits can hold the government itself to ransom through the abduction of prominent people or through mass abductions, and insist on specific ransom terms to which the government and families will have to comply suggests increased and increasing boldness. It suggests that they have attained a position of power where they no longer fear any consequences for their actions. They have even acquired the temerity to no longer hide their faces. They record videos of themselves in their camps, not for the purpose of issuing threats but just for the sheer fun of it and post these on social media.

I just saw a video of one bandit sporting a camouflage military cap, a blue shirt, his face clearly visible, enjoying a song whose lyrics encourage him to showcase his money. He ostentatiously holds up thick wads of notes, probably ransom money for the benefit of his viewers.

All of this highlights the failure of our security system, the NIN wahala that Nigerians were subjected to, with the idea being to help track criminals. What we have now is a situation where the law no longer dictates how criminals should live—in hiding, in the dark, like roaches scurrying from the light. They now dictate how we live, when we travel, and how we sleep in our own homes, if they let us sleep.

A country is in serious trouble when its criminals no longer harbour any fears over the consequences of their crimes. Nigeria is in trouble. But again, we all know that already. What are we doing about it, though? That has remained the major question.

If Nigeria does not definitively address these crimes, if we continue to pretend that we don’t have a very serious problem on our hands, then very soon, we will be living in a bandits’ empire. All of us, the low and the high, will surrender our rights to life to the whims of criminals with guns. Oh wait, did I hear you say, “Wetin remain?”